BOOKS and CINEMA

My mother used to tell her five children that if a person has a book, they have a friend. That maxim came to mind when I read this thoughtful (anonymous) essay by a NI1 student.

BOOKS and CINEMA

I’ve always loved reading and watching films. I began to read when I was a child… I used to visit my aunts and in their house, exactly in the living-room there was a cupboard where they had a magazine collection called Reader’s Digest. Do you know it? I often borrowed them.

I remember that they had a lot of romantic novels and I quickly read it but there was one special issue. I cried so much that my mother was worried and she told me: “I don’t understand how you cry but you continue reading!!!”. It’s very easy: I lived in the book! I was into the story or the story was in me. Who knows!

It was a fabulous experience because I could spend some time and not know what was happening around me. That was how I began to love books. Now, I spend some time in the bookshop touching, choosing and also smelling books.

On the other hand, I also love watching films. I like 50s American films with stars such as Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, Montgomery Cliff, Paul Newman, Audrey and Katherine Hepburn, among others. Now I often go to Monopol Cinema because it offers very interesting films, original version European films with subtitles and I enjoy watching Juliette Binoche, Christiane Thomas, Gabriel Byre and Tim Robbins.

While I’m writing these words I can see that I like classic and modern styles. I think that finally it’s important, it’s specially important reading, watching and listening to everything that makes us feel, everything that offers us opportunities, possibilities to live better lives.